First of all, in experimenting with my own blog, I think I figured out how Mr. Woodward included all of the student blogs on his website--a blogroll! This is a really neat way to organize his blogs. The issue for me will be keeping my student blogs private as well as figuring out how to get around the block on blogs in Howard County.
This week, I have been thinking about Social Studies and the international connections each curriculum has, even if you are teaching something like U.S. History. It seems to me that it would make students connect with the curriculum more if they could discuss current and historical issues with students from other countries to understand different perspectives on events then just a narrow American one. Blogging seems to be a great way to do this, as students could have Skype or chat conversations with students from international schools, and then blog periodically their reflections on the topics they discuss. The issue would come with finding teachers and students willing to collaborate. I found the following sites which seem to be great tools for creating connections:
http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/global_collaborative_projects.htm
http://www.globalschoolnet.org/
http://www.connectallschools.org/node/132295
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Blogging: Pros and Cons
As summer break begins rapidly approaching, I am trying to begin preparing for next year. My goal this time last summer was to set up a Google Site for my classroom, which I was successful in doing and will continue to improve this year. Now, I would like to set up a system for student blogging that will hopefully be beneficial to both the students and our overall classroom discussion.
In thinking about blogging, I decided to come up with some pros and cons of blogging to be sure that this was a worthwhile goal.
For me, the pros of blogging include:
1) Paperless.
2) Students who are shy can reflect and express themselves fully to the entire class.
3) Students can comment and discuss in a way that can get the whole class involved.
Cons:
1) There will be a long process of setting up the student blogs at the beginning of the year.
2) Privacy may be an issue as some students may only want to share their work with the teacher.
3) Students will need to be taught proper blog and commenting etiquette throughout the blog process.
In my opinion, the pros heavily outweigh the cons, as the nuts and bolts of the blogs can be figured out during the summer, and the fact that students will be taught proper blog and commenting etiquette will serve them well in future classes or even in the workplace. Overall, I believe my students would benefit greatly from keeping a consistent blog throughout their 9th Grade U.S. History experience.
I was inspired by this classroom blog:
https://sites.google.com/a/woodward.edu/mr-sorrow-s-us-history-class/student-blogs/2013/3rd2013
In addition, I also checked out these two sites to see what others were saying about the ease of setting up a student blog.
http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/blogging-with-students/
http://kidblog.org/home/
In thinking about blogging, I decided to come up with some pros and cons of blogging to be sure that this was a worthwhile goal.
For me, the pros of blogging include:
1) Paperless.
2) Students who are shy can reflect and express themselves fully to the entire class.
3) Students can comment and discuss in a way that can get the whole class involved.
Cons:
1) There will be a long process of setting up the student blogs at the beginning of the year.
2) Privacy may be an issue as some students may only want to share their work with the teacher.
3) Students will need to be taught proper blog and commenting etiquette throughout the blog process.
In my opinion, the pros heavily outweigh the cons, as the nuts and bolts of the blogs can be figured out during the summer, and the fact that students will be taught proper blog and commenting etiquette will serve them well in future classes or even in the workplace. Overall, I believe my students would benefit greatly from keeping a consistent blog throughout their 9th Grade U.S. History experience.
I was inspired by this classroom blog:
https://sites.google.com/a/woodward.edu/mr-sorrow-s-us-history-class/student-blogs/2013/3rd2013
In addition, I also checked out these two sites to see what others were saying about the ease of setting up a student blog.
http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/blogging-with-students/
http://kidblog.org/home/
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
First Reflections!
First blog post, here we come! Unfortunately I am at home in Catonsville writing this because blogger is blocked in Howard County Schools. This is definitely something that was immediately concerning as I was thinking about having my students set up their own blogs next year. Blogging brainstorming so far for me has been a weekly current events assignment blog students would be responsible for, as well as a weekly or biweekly discussion question based on what we are learning in the class. As a Social Studies teacher, current events has been hard to incorporate within regular class instruction, so I feel that blogging would be a great opportunity to work this in. Hopefully with the new emphasis on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and social media, the County will open up more opportunities for students to use blogs. Also, I am hoping to be able to link my student/teacher blog to my Google Site so I can have everything in one place. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this? It would also be nice to find out if their is a function within Google Sites that could make some pages private and other public, as I would not want student blog posts to be public to the entire web. Any suggestions? Until next time!
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